Africa’s Digital Revolution: Opportunities & Challenges

May 6, 2021

The Policy Center for the New South recently partnered with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on a pair of reports exploring the theme of technology and its impact on Africa’s political and economic future. In its report, The Impact of New Technologies on Employment and the Workforce: What Are the Implications for Developing Countries, Especially in Africa?, the PCNS analyzes the relationship between technology and employment in African labor markets, responding to the question of whether technology will help or hurt the twelve million Africans per year entering the job market. Taking a geopolitical angle in its report, Partnering for Africa’s Digital Future: Opportunities for the United States, South Korea, and India, the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center covers opportunities for cooperation between African nations, South Korea, India, and the United States to advance digital infrastructure and technology in Africa as an alternative to China.

Speakers
Jalal Abdel-Latif
Ethiopia
Senior Fellow
Jalal Abdel-Latif is Senior Fellow at Policy Center for the New South and Senior Social Policy Advisor, Gender and Poverty, Social Policy Division, UNECA. Jalal has over 25 years of professional experience in the areas of corporate social responsibility, civic engagement, grant making, project design and enhancing the capacities of non-profit organizations. He began his career as researcher and capacity analyst at UCLA African studies center, before working as Grants manager for USA for Africa (the We Are the World project) in California. He was also a co-founder and CEO of Inter-Africa Group, a regional think thank.  He was previously appointed by the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia to serve on the Ethiopian Telecommunications Board of Directors to assist in its moderniz ...
Stephanie Wander
Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, GeoTech Center, Atlantic Council
...
Ali Wyne
Senior Analyst for Global Macro, Eurasia Group
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    Ali Elguellab
    Elhadj Ezzahid
    November 1, 2023
    The role of the production network in shock propagation has been an issue of considerable interest since the Great Recession. However, the empirical literature has only focused on advanced and emerging countries. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap by examining the case of Morocco, a developing country belonging to the lower-middle-income group. The question is whether its production network is a factor in amplifying idiosyncratic industry-level shocks or, conversely, ...
  • Authors
    Jean Louis-Sarbib
    October 18, 2023
    Addressing inequalities in all their forms has emerged as one of the major global challenges faced by numerous countries across the globe, particularly in Africa. In a context where Africa faces many pressing challenges that are the subject of much analysis (Sarbib et al. 2022), there is a clear gap in conducting comprehensive reviews focused on inequalities, partly due to the lack of available data. Inequalities, which are both consequences and partial causes of poor development o ...
  • Authors
    Sous la direction de
    September 21, 2023
    Cette édition du Rapport économique de l’Afrique est construite autour d’une thématique d’une grande actualité : les conséquences des incertitudes et des risques aussi bien sanitaires que climatiques et sécuritaires sur les économies du continent. L’exercice est d’autant plus légitime que la recomposition de l’ordre mondial questionne la place du continent à l’échelle planétaire, sur les plans économique, social et environnemental. L’économie mondiale est confrontée à des défis glo ...
  • August 28, 2023
    Le secteur informel joue un rôle crucial dans le développement économique et social du Maroc en tant que filet de sécurité pour de nombreux travailleurs. Cependant, sa concentration dans de petites entreprises qui manquent de moyens de production sophistiqués peut entraver la croissance...
  • Authors
    August 17, 2023
    Défis et opportunités économiques en Afrique : Renforcer la stabilité financière pour un développement durable L’Afrique est un continent qui connaît de nombreux défis économiques et sociaux, mais aussi de grandes opportunités de développement. Pour réaliser son potentiel, le continent a besoin de renforcer sa stabilité financière, c’est-à-dire sa capacité à faire face aux chocs internes et externes qui peuvent affecter sa croissance et son développement. (Figure 1) La stabilité f ...
  • July 20, 2023
    Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in our daily lives. Having experienced considerable growth in recent years, artificial intelligence corresponds to technologies capable of processing hybrid sources, particularly unstructured data. Complex tasks are thus delegated to increasingly autonomous technological processes, capable of driving economic and social development. In current African society, AI is becoming more popular and seeking to cover all ...